Description
Scitus Academics Conservation And Management Of Tropical Rainforests An Integrated Approach To Sustainability by Nanda Sawant
Tropical rainforests are the most important land-based ecosystems on Earth and contain the greatest and richest biodiversity of the world, due to the fact that they house an enormous amount of species, from practically all taxonomic groups. In spite of covering only between 6 and 7% of the earth’s surface, it is estimated that they house more than 60% of the total species of living organisms. The Latin American rainforests are the most diverse ecosystem of the planet. To concentrate efforts on the conservation of tropical rainforests represents an efficient way of achieving the protection of biodiversity in general. The tropical rainforests of Latin America are also important, because of their extension and diversity, since they account for 61% of the world’s total surface of this kind of forests and possess a great variability. The coincidence between the zones of higher biodiversity and conservation, with the poor and marginal indigenous and peasant areas, indicate that the conservation efforts must be carried out in such a way, that conservation is combined with the attention, strengthening, defense and economic, social, political and cultural emancipation of the groups of poor indigenous peasants that inhabit them. Given their ecological importance, their degree of risk, and their essential meaning for the viability of modern development, the tropical rainforests area of the subcontinent deserves the first priority, in an effort to center and concentrate those international, institutional, and social efforts committed to nature conservation and sustainable development. It is fundamental to define, as a regional priority the objectives, strategies and actions around the defense and protection of tropical rainforests, without undermining the importance of other issues and resources of the Latin American tropics.